the why: an addition to my previous post

so the question is why.

why quit coffee?

i know coffee isnt good for you.  i've known this for a long time but in faithful adoration to my treasured brew have not been willing to face the facts.  love thinks no evil.

i was doing some yard work for a lady on wednesday, and on thursday my wrist hurt really bad...i thought i had really messed it up.  and i got to thinking about WHY a person my age would be experiencing a body that is MIA as far as holding itself together under only slightly more stressful activities than normal life.  

and then i thought back to my favorite morning love...and how it leaches calcium and other minerals out of one's bones...and how my dear old mom's gene contribution left me with a nice brittle frame for this body i'm in... a how i dont have any health insurance.

ya.

i just think it's time.

it doesnt mean i wont social drink the stuff.  i mean, seriously.  i have certain friends that will only be my friend if i drink coffee with them, which is fine by me to be sure.  i'm definitely not above that mindset.

but the whole acid headache addiction thing...tut tut.

i must live with open eyes, so that i CAN make it to the age of 87 (or sooner) where i WILL, at that point, do whatever i feel like which will include gallons of coffee.

so rest assured, loved ones.  it is a valiant battle.

lonesome coffee cup

i cant believe i'm saying this, but i'm going to try to quit coffee.

i know, i know.  you've already decided i cant do it.  well, you know what?

you might be right.

BUT

there's something to be said for giving such a sad state of caffeine-free humanity your best shot

(hee hee...shot...never mind.)

and i already have a headache from my half caff situation of this morning...

so you can officially feel welcome to pray for me.

:)

but i swear, if i make it to the age of 87, it'll be coffee breakfast lunch and dinner from there on out.

goodbye, my sweet, acidic, calcium robbing panacea...know that you are my favorite habit i've ever tried to quit...we shall meet again when my knees are in the Jordan and maybe i'll let you row me to other side.

Just Do Something

today i have a treat: my friend mo is a guest author on my blog.

she graduated with an english degree at cal poly, so be sure to judge her accordingly (just kidding mo :)

I want to buy a thousand copies, stand on the corner of Higuera and Garden, and kindly hand one to every single person aged 18 to 30 who passes by.  Of course, I might hand them to some people over the age of 30, especially if they happen to be male.  I am talking about a wonderful book that I read two days ago called "Just Do Something."  It is quite timely, especially the part that encourages guys to seek wisdom, get a job, and get married sooner rather than later.  A very necessary encouragement to those of us in the "tinkerer" generation who love Jesus and are trying to live our lives for Him and for each other, rather than ourselves.  So go by a copy for yourself and everyone you know who is sitting around trying to find God's perfect purpose for their life, paralyzed with indecision and fear that they will somehow make the wrong decision. It worked for me. Okay, so I'm still unemployed, but I have serious plans to move...hey, can you blame me? I'm a tinkerer and after all, I'm only 23.  

martin has a crack

yep, my martin has developed a crack.  right down the front center of it.  seriously: whose guitar just CRACKS?  whose MARTIN guitar just cracks?

sigh.

sometimes your good friends just fall apart.

we must forge on.  

"sleeping diagonally"

i appreciate the fact that there are a lot of things about God and being human that are mysterious.

like the latter half of this verse in psalm 139:

"when i awake, i am still with You."

i've been a christian for, like, ten years and i still dont understand why David randomly throws this stray conclusion in among his musings of how numerous and precious God's thoughts are to us.

i do have some ideas though-

the phrase "i am still with" means "again and again, repeatedly: an action, hardly intermitted, is repeatedly begun anew."   like breathing maybe.

lovely, right?  

my awareness of You becomes fresh all over again.

but i just think it's weird that he makes the implications that he does in this verse.  what does sleep or wake have to do with God staying or going?  it still speaks to me though, deeply, as good poetry should- maybe because the implied conclusions of our own thought processes really are this odd.  

the only idea i can picture in my mind is this:

two seconds into your newly acquired consciousness for the day your mind is pummeled by the fact that you've got to be late for something.  Seconds number three to five of your consciousness then is spent in INSTANT PANIC choking down a gasp while reaching for your clock/cell phone to figure out-for-the-love-of-crimini  what time it is.  

dont worry.

its 6 am.

you dont have work till 8.

you were stressed for nothing.

in the summer time the sun comes up really early, remember?

you let out a sigh from the gasp you were holding in and instantly relax your entire being in full body relief.

maybe thats the experience that David was talking about- not in the physical sense so much, but (and here's where the poetry comes in...dont be afraid...poetry is good....gooooood...nothing to be worried about) in the sense that when something slumbering inside you jolts to life in instant panic, it wonders if this whole time it was sleeping alone and what might have happened to it unawares while it was dozing on the job.

and we all know how rational a newly awakened anything is:

"maybe i missed Him...maybe He got tired of waiting and left...Maybe he gave up on me...Maybe i'll never get Him back....Maybe i screwed up my own life by ceasing to be aware of Him for a while and now its all over..."

"maybe" is a cruel word, full of fear.

and in the panic we gasp and reach for the indicator that will tell us if He is still there...His hand, His face perhaps.  and our hand touches something solid and familiar and warm and our body gives itself permission to lay off the adrenaline.

and in David's world, this is an again and again thing- like some people's compulsive habit of checking for their keys to make sure they didnt lock them in the car.  

and every 

every 

every 

single time

i realize You are still there...

i didnt screw up for good...

i didnt lose the one thing i have worth living for in You...

i didnt sleep alone after all.

cas mcshady

view from van Gogh

-or-

"i wear my suuunglasses at night"

dang.  i have too much time on my hands.

last final tomorrow!

San-Remy

i wish i would have made toast this morning.

the coffee is shuffling a geriatric pace through my blood and has spitefully neglected the region of my brain.  the morning is a promise of cooler, normal weather- like a last meal before execution.

"here ya go.  here's some comfort before the heat.  drink your coffee while its still cold enough to enjoy it."

we walk like musical instruments across our second story college apartment, lovingly referred to as The Tree House.  it must be like listening to a Balkan garbage can tuba band from the apartment beneath us.

and last night, when i dared to play guitar in the delicious gloaming of the warm night out on our shared  porch, the neighbors opened their window to listen, saying when the noise bleeds through the walls they quiet down and eavesdrop.  

and today, i am Abraham all over again.  at least in his beginning sense.  "here's for today, Abraham: go.  dont try to understand or plan.  just go and live."  permission and command.  command and permission.  

It reminds me of driving across the salt flats when i was 14 and we were almost out of gas so we couldnt listen to the radio or feel conditioned air.  

it reminds me of lying in bed when i was 18 years old the night before i left for bible college, wondering.

it is blank canvas, picking the colors in my mind...wishing You would pick them for me.  my imagination is not a long distance runner.

van gogh eating yellow ochre oil paint at San-Remy.  a childish wish to take the color into himself.

by this time next week, the long dark dream of chico will be over.  i want to lay my head on a rock and live somewhere between esau and a withered hip socket- watching the ladder carry traffic from Him to me.

"surely the Lord is in this place and i knew it not."